1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to user interfaces for data processing systems and, more particularly, to a method of graphically accessing electronic data by the manipulation of animated icons.
2. Description of the Prior Art
User interfaces allow the computer user to interact or communicate with the computer system. User interfaces are typically implemented with a display screen and an entry device, such as a keyboard, mouse, light pen or the like. The display screen displays information and data to the user and the user uses the entry device to give commands and provide information to the computer system.
Relatively low level user interfaces are word or character oriented. In such user interfaces, the user is required to know or have readily available various commands and operators in order to work with the system. Such low level user interfaces also require the user to know various rules of syntax and have some knowledge of the structure of the underlying application. Low level user interfaces are not user friendly.
Some higher level user interfaces include various menus and prompts. Such interfaces provide the user with limited choices and they ask the user for information. Such user interfaces are somewhat automated and they require less skill on the part of the user. However, such user interfaces are language intensive, so they require a certain level of literacy on the part of the user. Also, substantial effort and expense are required to adapt such user interfaces to different national languages.
Recently, as more and more people want and need to use the power of the computer in their daily work but do not have the time to develop the specialized data processing skills required to define information or communication requirements, even higher level user interfaces have been developed. One such high level user interface presents the user with windows and icons. Windows usually include a title bar, an action bar, and a client area. The title bar identifies the window. It may also have some standard action areas that allow the user to maximize or minimize the size of the window and to scroll the data within the window. The action bar lists a set of actions that can be selected, such as style, edit, view, or help.
The main client area of the window may be populated with icons, which are small stylized representations of the objects with which the user works. By using a mouse, the user can move the icons around by dragging them. Dragging may be done, for example, by operating the mouse to point to the icon, holding down one of the mouse buttons, which effectively grabs the icon, and moving the mouse around. Dragging one object and laying it on top of another object is one form of direct manipulation. Dragging an object to a printer icon, for example, tells the system to print whatever the object represents. Dragging an object to a file cabinet icon instructs the system to file the object. Some icons represent individual objects, for example, a document or a telephone. Other icons represent containers, for example, a file cabinet or a mail basket, which can contain other objects.
Iconographic user interfaces are an improvement over the lower level user interfaces. However, presently existing iconographic interfaces do have some shortcomings. For example, the operations with the icons are not completely intuitive. The beginning user must resort to online helps and tutorials, including help windows, in order to operate the system. Also, such user interfaces rely extensively upon textual material in the form of pull-down and pop-up menus. User literacy and national language support problems still exist in such user interfaces.
A further shortcoming of the presently existing iconographic user interfaces, as well as the menu driven interfaces, is in the number of manipulative steps by the user and getting into and out of the data. If the user wishes to inspect the contents of a particular file, the user must open the window for that file to display its contents. If, after having looked at the contents of the file, the user wishes not to work with the contents of the file, the user must go to that file's window and perform various non-intuitive closing operations before returning to the main window.